Saltburn
Station

Page
under development

Saltburn
station was designed by the S&D Architect William Peachey and
completed in 1862. Passenger services had begun in August 1861 but
a start on the permanent building was delayed while the directors
finalised their ideas for the Zetland Hotel. Their minutes imply
that construction work was only just underway at the start of February
1862. It was a single-platform terminus with a trainshed identical
with that surviving at Redcar, sheltering a carriage siding as well
as the platform line. The platform was continued beyond the east
end of the trainshed to provide direct access into the hotel, its
far end being covered by a short trainshed of its own.

The
station frontage is a much more assured essay than that seen at
Redcar. It focuses on a well-proportioned portico, boldly articulated
with chunky Tuscan pilasters and executed in pale buff brick with
sandstone dressings. The windows of the central pavilion are of
that Italian Renaissance form which pairs arched lights under a
round one. Added distinction is provided by the spiral pattern (barley-sugar
twist) colonnettes which frame the lower lights. The facing brick
is actually firebrick from one of the Pease collieries near Crook;
this was mandatory for facades in the new town, helping to keep
business in the family but also providing a valuable visual tie
between buildings.

The
portico led into a booking hall with a circular office in the middle,
lit by a skylight in its domed ceiling. The rear half of the office
projected into a recess on the platform frontage. This imaginative
layout made for good circulation, but the NER eventually found the
office accommodation inadequate and spoiled things by extending
it towards the front wall. Within the trainshed, the subtle
polychromy of buff brick and stone seen on the facade was replaced
by a more striking combination of buff and red brick, found also
at Peachey's Saltburn engine shed.

The
interior of Saltburn station in about 1970, by which time the far
end of the trainshed roof had lost its cladding.

Traffic
growth led first to the commissioning of an entirely separate Saltburn
Excursion Station in 1870 and then a progressive westward extension of the
main platform. Saltburn finished up with three
further west-end bays, which were equipped with glazed verandahs
in 1899, a year which also brought the booking office enlargement
already mentioned.

Saltburn
station in LNER days, with the 1899 roofs in the left background.

Declining
traffic in the nineteen-sixties led to the abandonment of the trainshed,
which had lost its tracks by 1971, with trains being handled at
the western bays. These had lost their 1899 roofs though one had
acquired a British Railways awning instead. At this stage, though
Peachey's office range remained in use, the trainshed roof was falling
into disrepair. The spread of 'pay trains' made the office range
redundant as well but this was the saving of the building. The trainshed
was dismantled but the office building was thoroughly and sensitively
restored for retail use.